Rowlands Gill veteran's march of pride past Cenotaph

A BLIND veteran from Tyneside will be among those marching past the Cenotaph on Sunday to honour the country’s fallen heroes.

Queen lays a wreath at the cenotaph during last year's Remembrance Sunday parade

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A BLIND veteran from Tyneside will be among those marching past the Cenotaph on Sunday to honour the country’s fallen heroes.

Tom Bryden, 84, will take part in the central London march alongside hundreds of other ex-service personnel.

The pensioner, from Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, will march on behalf of Blind Veterans UK, the national charity for blind former members of the armed forces.

Tom was called up to do National Service when he was 18, just after the end of the Second World War.

“I always greatly look forward to the Remembrance Day march to the Cenotaph,” he said.

“I lost mates who I had served with, so when I march I think of them. It is essential that we always remember them.

“I was in a very early National Service intake. It was June 1946 and the war had only just come to an end in 1945. I went to Palestine, where I was injured, and also Suez.

“I really enjoyed what I did. I took what it threw at me and tried to make the very best of it. I think that this is an attitude that I have carried with me ever since.”

Tom became blind in later life as a result of bilateral macular degeneration. As an ex-serviceman he was eligible to become a member of Blind Veterans UK.

The charity provides rehabilitation, art and craft classes, sports and recreation, clubs and societies, IT, care and welfare to former personnel who are blind, regardless of when they served or how they lost their sight.

Tom added: “I know from what I have seen in other people that losing your confidence is very easy to do when you suffer from sight loss, and it is very difficult to regain.

“I remember once going up the escalator in a shopping centre in Newcastle around Christmas time and hearing two ladies standing behind me talking.

“One said to the other, ‘I really don’t know what on earth a blind person is doing in a shopping centre at this time of year’.

“I thought, ‘Does she think that we do not have to shop, to buy goods, to eat?’

“I feel like Blind Veterans UK is one big family, and I feel very happy and proud to be part of it.

“I think that as a charity we should really blow our trumpet about all of the excellent things we do.”

Blind Veterans UK recently launched its No One Alone campaign which aims to reach out to the 68,000 blind veterans eligible for the charity’s services but unaware of what it does.

l If you know someone who served in the armed forces who is now battling severe sight problems, call 0800 389 7979 or visit www.noonealone.org.uk